bedtime stories
by dance-at-bougival
Summary: you lack conviction.


You lack conviction, says the silly little man in the silly little suit, huddling around the meagre warmth of the weapon.

A hundred thousand years ago he had hung off the edge of the world, the Bifrost raining down in pieces all around him, and he had said to his father: _I could have done it._

Magic is about believing, you see. No one, not even Loki Silvertongue, he of tricks and words and the shadow within souls, can fool a half-witted child without believing in the lie they're telling. No one can win without the right amount of heart.

You lack conviction, says the silly man in the silly suit; and for a single, terrifying moment, his mind is blank.

* * *

"It's a risk," Barton says.

"Oh, yes."

A handful of hate, a pair of warring brothers, a pinch of drama—and what is a story without high risks?

In the years, in the centuries to come, when historians mark down the conquering of earth on paper, they will write of this. And they will not have to embellish overmuch.

* * *

"Volstagg's tales are exhausting," Sif nudges him in the side and slumps down. Down the banqueting table, Volstagg is making grand gestures and there is a piece of boar stuck in his beard. Loki smiles into his goblet. Sif scowls. "You'd think he'd tire of such lies."

"They are not lies," he says, and tears apart a piece of bread. It is heavy and dark in his mouth. "He believes in them; to him they are not lies, but mere embellished truth."

Sif rolls her eyes. "Enough with your rhetoric. I swear, if he takes credit for my kills, I shall tear him a new mouth to eat with."

"Ooh," he grins. "How unladylike, Lady Sif."

She jabs her knuckles, sharp and angled, into the point below his ribs, and he has to bite his tongue to hold back a hiss of pain. She gestures to the end of the table, where Thor is engaged in a drinking contest, his cheeks steadily reddening. "Go look after your idiot brother," she says. "If he destroys another wing of the palace, the Queen may kill him."

* * *

He falls.

Through the black space between stars, between the branches of Yggdrasil, through the circling of moons and to worlds unknown and undiscovered, the black space around him expanding and threatening, shapeless fingers pawing at his limbs, tearing between the joints of his armour.

When he wakes, he is greeted by nothing but a voice.

"Oh, my prince," the creature whispers, and his back crawls. "How far the mighty have fallen."

In the stories, written in calligraphy on thin pages and vellum, in the great soaring library of Asgard, the maiden awakes and the hero slays the beast, the prodigal prince falls and is rescued by kindly farmers. That is how the stories go.

The creature presses his fingers against his skin, and Loki shivers, thinks, _I believe_.

* * *

"It's a risk," Barton says.

This is the truth of it: the prodigal son always returns. In the stories, in the myths, in the songs sung by courtiers in the golden halls of the mighty, the hero always slays the beast, the son always returns, the unwanted child drifts down the river in a basket, and comes back with an army.

"I tire of scuttling in shadow," he says, and does not mention that he has tired of the dark, has learnt to fear the black space between stars; if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. The realms tell stories of light and gold and the unconquerable might of his brother and the realms do not tell tales of trickery and dark as anything other than a counterpoint.

Gods and monsters, heroes and saviours; stories, all. He makes sure to smile, in Germany, makes sure to slam the man down with more force than necessary, makes sure to grin. _Watch. Just watch._

Childish need, he remembers, and his smile is a vicious slash of teeth. You must be steel, the Other had said. You must be the wind in the trees, the space between universes, you must be unbendable; there is no room for sentiment, you cannot be weak.

_I am not weak_, he thinks and the crowd kneels. _I believe._

* * *

"You're a monster," says the woman.

A hundred million years ago, he had stood in a vault and looked up at the father who stole him from a temple in a conquered land. A hundred million years ago, he had spent entire nights sleepless, turning his skin blue, had gouged his nails into his flesh, and wondered why he did not bleed ice. A hundred million years ago, he had asked his father if they told stories about him at night, if he was the shadow at the corner of the room, to be slain by a golden hero.

"Oh, no," he says, "you brought the monster."

Sometimes, he's learned, the stories can be manipulated. Sometimes the prodigal son and the creature in the dark are one and the same.

* * *

I could have done it. For you, for all of us. I could have done it.

He had distracted the Aesir, had slayed the beasts, and Asgard would never know of his degenerate blood. A thousand Jotunns dead at his feet; he would have rejoiced. A great feast. All the realms, then, would have rejoiced.

I believe, he thinks. This is a story like any other, and I believe, father. I believe, I believe, if I believe in this magic then it shall be real.

When his father says quietly, _no_, the entire world shatters.

He lets go, and thinks, vicious, _watch_.

* * *

They are children, and he is making snow fall from the golden ceiling of Thor's room.

"It's sorcery!" Thor shouts, laughing and spinning. "By Yggdrasil—Loki! It's magic!"

He is grinning but he is trying not to as he chants the spell he'd written, over and over. There is sweat beading on his forehead, but it is a good exertion; the euphoria one receives after a hard day's work. He closes his eyes, and thinks of the frozen wastes of Jotunheim, the broad expanses of frozen sea and snow-capped mountains, imagines ten foot tall monsters, emerging from the haze of the cold, your breath white before your eyes and the sheer terror spreading through your veins upon seeing their red eyes, their savage smile—

"Aargh!" Thor screams in terrified delight, and stumbles into Loki. His concentration breaks almost audibly, and he feels his mind snapping back into himself as he falls. In the corner of the room, the shadow of a monster fades away into nothing, and the snow on the ground is fading all before Thor begins to laugh.

He pushes his brother off of him, but he is smiling. "You ruined it," he says, thinks for a moment, and then adds, "oaf."

"How did you do it?" Thor exclaims, sweeping his hand along the ground to see if any remained. "Did you always know? Did the elders teach you?"

His lips twist, and his smile has an edge. The elders know only the numbers, the constellations, the laws written down on sheepskin by men who had died centuries before. How many Aesir can fit in the Bifrost, that is their magic: the length of the journey from Asgard to Nornheim, the arithmetic needed to keep the guard towers afloat. Old laws and old worries acting as sentries to the sheer expanse of knowledge at Asgard's fingertips; they had not seen the colour of sorcery, they had not known the sheer myth of it. To bewitch the mind, to pleasure the senses, to carve your own way through the universe. There are untold frontiers waiting to be crossed.

A week ago he had snuck past great Heimdall and made his way into the Bifrost, but had faltered at the last second. _Next time,_ he had told himself. _Do not be greedy with your victories._

"Practice," he tells his brother. "Practice, and books, and a great deal of time thinking—all those things you so despise."

Thor laughs, and thumps him on the chest. For this one particular trick, he had stayed up for three nights, calculating the exact figures needed to charm the mind, to make you see a shadow where there is only the solid wall, to give the sensation of cold in the high summer. He had asked himself, _what is the coldest place in all of the realms; with all the creatures children learn to fear?_

Why, Jotunheim.

"When I am king," Thor says, "we shall lead great hunts, and slay the monsters once and for all, and you shall be by my side, brother. I shall have need of your talents."

There is something itching against his skin, something beating at the confines of his heart. _Do not be so sure_, he thinks and bites his tongue. _The crown is not yours yet._

Thor's eyes are far away, his chin resting in his hands. "You shall distract the beasts, and Sif and I shall slay them; Asgard will never need fear the wrath of those creatures ever again. And then we shall feast!"

_Asgard never feared Jotunheim_; he watches the lines of his brother's face, the wistful twist of mouth, the gaze that sees a thousand dead Jotunns at his feet and all the realms rejoicing. Asgard had never feared the race of monsters with one meagre casket to their name, the race that terrifies primitive humans on a faraway world simply because that is the only creatures beneath them on the great scale of being. Golden Asgard had no fear for the darkness of Jotunheim, had no use for them once the casket was gone; slaying them will do nothing but waste good men.

Loki looks at his brother. He wonders if this too, is a story that must be believed to be real.

* * *

His brother is standing, unmoving, in the cage. His shoulders are bowed, and oh, Loki thinks. How the mighty have fallen.

"The humans think us immortal," he grins, and his eyes sweep over the minute tightening of Thor's fists, the way his brother is avoiding his gaze, the way something glistens at the corner of his eye. "Shall we test that?"

Magic is about believing. Magic is about putting enough truth into the math until for that moment, it is tangible, it is real, and it is truth. Magic is about the careful application of your own heart.

In a field many thousands of years ago on Midgard, one brother had slain the other, had stained the earth with his blood, and a city had been built on top of the red in that particular ledger. A blood sacrifice; a story. It is a trope as old as time. Play it right, and you may gain an empire.

_I believe_, he thinks, and presses the button.

* * *

In the silence after the fall, he stands still, staring at the space where the cage had stood only a few moments ago. When he looks down, he is surprised to see that his fingers are shaking.

"You're gonna lose," says the half-dead man in the stained suit.

But I believe, he thinks. And magic is about believing.

The man smiles slightly, and it looks almost sad. "You lack conviction."

No. No, you don't.


End file.
